JAPAN: An End to Play-Acting

Clashes between Japanese students and police
have long had the ritual quality of a classic No play. First would come
the students, helmeted and frequently masked with towels. From under a
forest of red banners, they would let go a barrage of stones for a
salutation. The police, brandishing nightsticks, would retaliate with
exploding tear-gas charges. Even in the most impassioned
confrontations, however, the actors on both sides rigidly adhered to an
unwritten law: no killing.

Last week, in the bloodiest of a long series of skirmishes over the
building of Tokyo's new jetport at Narita, some 40 miles southeast...